Fluvial Architecture and Geometry of the Mungaroo
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FLUVIAL ARCHITECTURE AND GEOMETRY OF THE MUNGAROO FORMATION ON THE RANKIN TREND OF THE NORTHWEST SHELF OF AUSTRALIA by Scott Bradley Stoner Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of The University of Texas at Arlington in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of MASTER OF SCIENCE IN GEOLOGY THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT ARLINGTON May 2010 Copyright © by Scott Bradley Stoner 2010 All Rights Reserved DEDICATION I would like to dedicate this to my family Nora, Kimberly and Christina for being supportive of my efforts and for forgiving me for being away from home far more than a dad should while I was in school. I would also like to dedicate this to my mom who has always been supportive even though it took me almost thirty years to finally get my masters degree. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank my committee John Holbrook, John Wickham and Harry Rowe for agreeing to help me on this endeavor. I would especially like to thank John Holbrook for allowing me to take on this project, and for all the time he spent and patience he displayed in assisting me complete it. I would also like to thank the people at Woodside Petroleum in Perth for making it possible for me to travel to Australia and all the hospitality they provided while I was there. Simon Lang and Neil Marshall deserve special thanks for all the time they spent helping me and for being downright great guys. April, 28, 2010 iv ABSTRACT FLUVIAL ARCHITECTURE AND GEOMETRY OF THE MUNGAROO FORMATION ON THE RANKIN TREND OF THE NORTHWEST SHELF OF AUSTRALIA Scott Bradley Stoner, M.S. The University of Texas at Arlington, 2010 Supervising Professor: John Holbrook The Northwest Shelf of Australia contains many producing world class gas reservoirs with large areas remaining unexplored. The fluvio-deltaic Mungaroo Formation of Rankin Trend on the Northwest Shelf is the site of many producing fields on the Northwest Shelf and data collected from these sites is invaluable in understanding the architecture and geometry of the fluvial strata that house these reservoirs. The Mungaroo Formation contains alternating sections of low accommodation amalgamated sand bodies, and high accommodation shale prone sections that record architecturally complex floodplain deposits. The study sections were broken down into v eight architectural elements; thalweg fill, unit bar, abandonment phase, floodplain mudflat, crevasse splay, splay delta, open lake, and swamp. This work presents architectural and geometrical interpretations of the high and low accommodation sections of the Mungaroo Formation on the Rankin Trend using core. The low accommodation Lower E amalgamated sands are multiple channel belts thick and display internal architectural complexity that implies internal higher order surfaces up to the sequence boundary level and the buffers and buttresses model is employed to gain a better understanding of their regional context. The channel/channel belt geometries can be divided into three size populations that can be reconciled by using the modern Pilbara as an analog. The Middle E and Upper F high accommodation sections are complex mud and silt dominated floodplain deposits. This study suggests that floodplain deposits may have a better reservoir potential than current thinking implies due the complexity of the sand bodies and the tendency of splay deltas to form ribbon channels, not lobes as current thinking implies, that connect channel belts, thus, creating larger reservoirs consisting of multiple channel belts. A better understanding of the areas complicated sedimentology will enhance current fields production, and assist in ongoing exploration efforts. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ............................................................................................... iv ABSTRACT .........................................................................................................................v LIST OF FIGURES ........................................................................................................... ix LIST OF TABLES ......................................................................................................... xviii Chapter Page 1. INTRODUCTION ...............................................................................................1 2. GEOLOGIC SETTING .......................................................................................3 3. METHODS AND DATA ..................................................................................13 4. ARCHITECTURAL ELEMENTS ....................................................................22 5. ARCHITECTURAL GEOMETRY ...................................................................37 6. DISCUSSION ....................................................................................................58 7. CONCLUSION ..................................................................................................84 APPENDIX A. GWA-03 CORE REVIEW................................................................................87 B. GWA-02 CORE REVIEW ................................................................................94 C. GOODWYN 8 CORE REVIEW....................................................................105 D. YODEL 2 ARCHITECTURAL ANALYSIS ................... See Supplemental File E. GWA-03 ARCHITECTURAL ANALYSIS ..................... See Supplemental File F. PLUTO 2 CH1 ARCHITECTURAL ANALYSIS ............ See Supplemental File vii G. FLOODPLAIN LAKE STUDY........................................ See Supplemental File H. CHANNEL/CHANNEL BELT ATTRIBUTES ............... See Supplemental File REFERENCES ............................................................................................................... 116 BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION .............................................................................. 125 viii LIST OF FIGURES Figure Page 2-1: Basins of the Northwest Shelf of Australia and the "Westralian Superbasin". DEM and bathymetric map shown for comparison. (After Westphal and Aigner, 1997) ......................................................... 4 2-2: Location of the Northwest Shelf in the Late Triassic and paleo-drainage trends. The Northwest Shelf received sediments from the Ross Highlands via a drainage system that may have rivaled the Mississippi's as well as from the adjacent Pilbara Cratonic Block (After Longley et al., 2002). .................................................................................... 5 2-3: Stratigraghy of the Northwest Shelf with study section circled. (After Bennot and Bussel, 2006) ............................................................... 7 2-4: Plan view map and cross-section through the Northwest Shelf highlighting the Rankin Trend. Triassic sediments and the regional seal are labeled on the cross-section (After Westphal and Aigner, 1997) . ............................................................. 8 2-5: Asymmetric breakup of a wide rift basin. a) Symmetrical growth of a wide rift basin b) Asymmetric breakup as the central area cools and hardens and deformation preferentially localizes in the weaker of the bounding narrow rift basins causing it to rift. ......................................................... 10 2-6: Asymmetric wide rift breakup model applied to the Northern Carnarvon Basin a) Proterozoic thin skinned extension. b) Permian - Carboniferous wide rifting c) Late Permian to Late Triassic sag phase resulting from outward flow of the lower crust d) Jurassic-Cretaceous extensional reactivation of more brittle cooled lithosphere results in bounding narrow rift basins and eventually sea floor spreading ix at the weaker western rift basin. e) Present day cross section. (After Gartell, 2000). Rankin Trend area highlighted. ..................................................................................................... 12 Figure 3-1: Location of Pluto, Yodel, and Goodwyn fields on the Rankin Trend. Core samples are from these three locations. ......................................................................................................... 13 3-2: Location of core used in this study in relation to facies units and accommodation setting. E and F units are separated at the top of the H. Balmei flooding interval. The occurrence of H. Balmei is interpreted to indicate a marine influence. ............................................................................................................... 14 3-3: Miall's bounding surface hierarchies. Of particular interest to this study are 5th order channel bounding surfaces, 6th order valley bounding surfaces and 7th order sequence boundaries (Miall, 1985, 1988, 1996). .......................... 17 3-4: Holbrook's 2001 study of middle Cretaceous strata in southeastern Colorado in which higher order channel-belt, valley and sequence bounding surfaces are interpreted in outcrop using Miall's architectural-element analysis technique. ......................................................................... 18 3-5: Minimum bankfull channel depth is interpreted architecturally from core by identifying a relatively complete succession of the channel fill architectural elements which make up a complete channel fill. An estimate may still be made with the thalweg fill element missing given a reasonable succession of unit bars, although such estimates should definitely be considered minimums. (After Bridge and Tye, 2000). ........................................................................................... 19 3-6: Quantitative